Do I have a shot?

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Overall GPA 3.43 (Bad freshman year..)
Science 3.571

I'm taking the DAT June 7th. On my practice tests I've been getting around 19AA and 23 PAT.

I'm the president of my school's Pre-Dental Club. An Anatomy and Physiology Teaching Assistant. 60 hours of shadowing, 40 hours of volunteering so far.

Do I have any chance at all? What do you think my DAT scores will have to be to even get a look?

Any extra tips?

Thanks everyone!

ppl r getting in with 3.0 and 3.2 GPAs. Do well on the DAT and apply smartly, you will definitely get in. Honest Opinion.

Yes you have a chance. your science GPS is good, with a 19/20+dat you should get some interviews/acceptances

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Awesome! Thanks for the feedback.

Originally Posted by cinnamonswirl

Overall GPA 3.43 (Bad freshman year..)
Science 3.571

I'm taking the DAT June 7th. On my practice tests I've been getting around 19AA and 23 PAT.

I'm the president of my school's Pre-Dental Club. An Anatomy and Physiology Teaching Assistant. 60 hours of shadowing, 40 hours of volunteering so far.

Do I have any chance at all? [yes] What do you think my DAT scores will have to be to even get a look? [19AA to get a look and 20+ AA to be competitive]

Any extra tips? [Apply on June 4th.]

Thanks everyone!

See texts in red.

Your GPA's are good. You should not worry about it. DAT wise, you want atleast a 19 overall and nothing below an 18. IF you do get something in the 16-18 range make sure its only the math section. That is the only section that dental schools dont care about and almost never look at.

I got 21 overall and a 16 in my math section. Pretty funny huh. I hate math, not going to lie there. That being said, i still got 10 interviews and accepted to 5. In almost all of my interviews they mentioned how they never noticed my math score and they didn't care about that at all. Its just there because its there. They do care alot about all the other sections. So good luck

Originally Posted by Logs

Your GPA's are good. You should not worry about it. DAT wise, you want atleast a 19 overall and nothing below an 18. IF you do get something in the 16-18 range make sure its only the math section. That is the only section that dental schools dont care about and almost never look at.

I got 21 overall and a 16 in my math section. Pretty funny huh. I hate math, not going to lie there. That being said, i still got 10 interviews and accepted to 5. In almost all of my interviews they mentioned how they never noticed my math score and they didn't care about that at all. Its just there because its there. They do care alot about all the other sections. So good luck

what did you get for Reading section..

I am little worried about readying because I keep getting 17s on practice tests...

Originally Posted by bluesolic

what did you get for Reading section..

I am little worried about readying because I keep getting 17s on practice tests...

What practice DATs have you been doing? I got 21 on my reading. I was really lucky though cause one of the passages was all on prions and I already knew everything about prions from a couple of my classes.

I never got anything higher than a 19 on all of my practice tests. I don't know how I pulled a 21 but I am very thankful for that. My advise is to always always always study your old practice tests. go through all the questions and all the possible answers especially for the biology section. With the reading, all you can do is practice your style of doing it. I used Search & Destroy method / scanning. Also you want to do as many practice tests as you can. I did about 8 of them.


EDIT: I need to also mention that dental schools do look at the reading section carefully. The reason for that is because that is a very good indication of how the student will do in dental school. The first 2 years is mainly academic and you will be needing to do a heavly load of reading in short time periods and need to be able to get the important information.

Originally Posted by Logs

What practice DATs have you been doing? I got 21 on my reading. I was really lucky though cause one of the passages was all on prions and I already knew everything about prions from a couple of my classes.

I never got anything higher than a 19 on all of my practice tests. I don't know how I pulled a 21 but I am very thankful for that. My advise is to always always always study your old practice tests. go through all the questions and all the possible answers especially for the biology section. With the reading, all you can do is practice your style of doing it. I used Search & Destroy method / scanning. Also you want to do as many practice tests as you can. I did about 8 of them.


EDIT: I need to also mention that dental schools do look at the reading section carefully. The reason for that is because that is a very good indication of how the student will do in dental school. The first 2 years is mainly academic and you will be needing to do a heavly load of reading in short time periods and need to be able to get the important information.

I did Crack DAT reading, I did all and the average was about 17...

i never did crack dat reading.. i only had crack dat pat which was awesome. Thats all i need in regards to the PAT.

I did kaplan course which has 6 full lenght practice tests and tons other small sectional quizes. I also took a practice test from adea website (the free one) and barrons practice test. I think that was it. If you don't know about prions and mad cow disease it wouldn't hurt reading up on that just in case you get that one too.
I also used dat destroyer... had all the sciences and math but no reading.

I would never ever recommend getting the dat destroyer math.... what a waste of money and energy for the least important section.

Originally Posted by Logs

i never did crack dat reading.. i only had crack dat pat which was awesome. Thats all i need in regards to the PAT.

I did kaplan course which has 6 full lenght practice tests and tons other small sectional quizes. I also took a practice test from adea website (the free one) and barrons practice test. I think that was it. If you don't know about prions and mad cow disease it wouldn't hurt reading up on that just in case you get that one too.
I also used dat destroyer... had all the sciences and math but no reading.

I would never ever recommend getting the dat destroyer math.... what a waste of money and energy for the least important section.

another question, what did you get for math section, and how did get the information that the math is not important.

I was gonna get high score on math to increase whole DAT average..


and one more question, I am pretty good at ochem so I won't worry about it but the gchem, people said Chad can kill the exam and also it is the only thing you need to focus on.

but does it mean that I can get like 27, 28 on gchem ? or chad can make the score up to 23, 22 but it is just considered as high score ?

because I want to get above 28 on both chem so if the chad helps around 23,22 then I am thinking to study more.. since I am not good at biology ( 18 on practice test ).. and reading..( 17 on practice test )

thanks for advice

I think you have everything going for you. Just make sure you,

1. Great great letters of recommendations
2. Apply early and pick a variety of schools
3. Study really hard for the DAT, see if you can get it up a point or 2.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by bluesolic

another question, what did you get for math section, and how did get the information that the math is not important.

I was gonna get high score on math to increase whole DAT average..


and one more question, I am pretty good at ochem so I won't worry about it but the gchem, people said Chad can kill the exam and also it is the only thing you need to focus on.

but does it mean that I can get like 27, 28 on gchem ? or chad can make the score up to 23, 22 but it is just considered as high score ?

because I want to get above 28 on both chem so if the chad helps around 23,22 then I am thinking to study more.. since I am not good at biology ( 18 on practice test ).. and reading..( 17 on practice test )

thanks for advice

The math section is the least important section of the DAT, and schools will general forgive you if your other sections are high. But this does not mean that you can totally ignore it. It does count toward your AA, which is the most important score that the schools will look into.

If math is your strong point, then I suggest studying for it. It will be easy for you, and you'll get a high score. Some of my Asian friends (especially international ones) usually kill this section with 24+.

Getting 27+ on any section depends on a LOT of luck. In Gchem or Ochem, miss 3 questions and you're usually down to a 22. So just aim for as high as you can, but don't expect any guaranteed scores with any study material. That said , the Chad videos have been getting awesome reviews, and many have been getting awesome scores because of him.

For reading, for some it comes naturally, while for others, you have to practice. Getting the Crack DAT reading would help you with the tone/inference types of questions that will be present in the DAT.

Math is still important for the AA but dental schools don't look at it with much light. Getting such high science scores are way hard cause just a 2 or 3 missed questions will bring it down to 23 range. If you get 20+ in all your other sections than you are going to be golden.
I focused most of my study time with biology and gen chem. If you have Dat Destroyer a good way to see if your good with ochem is just go through its ochem section. If you know it than you are just fine.